Another Blow For the Dellsnots 1132

of any out.

You guys are missing the scales here. Not a blip on Dells radar, true, but what about on the radar of their various departments and divisions? Show just about any major company where they can save that kind of money and you just may find yourself in line for a nice fat bonus and maybe even a promotion. A lot of the issues that have been debated here have not been thought up by the front office or even anyone at the corporate level. Some middle manager gets and idea (thinks it up, steals it from some other company, whatever) and promotes it to his boss. If he can sell his boss on it, his boss in turn sells it to the next fish up the line and so on. As it moves up it gains momentum until it becomes a company initiative-policy and finally corporate heads take notice and give it their blessing. They may not understand the details, but if in summary it looks go to them that's all it takes.

There was a movie not so long ago with Kelsey Grammar about the Pentagons processes for developing and approving new equipment. Corporate R&D isn't that much different. Trust me I once fielded a proposal to buy a $12.00 off the shelf cbuttette recorder, for filed use (man portable and disposable in use), as a replacement to an old and no longer available reel-to-reel system. We priced three systems with pictures and full nomenclature and factory specs. A year later we received a $2,000.00 high end cbuttette recording system weighing in at about 20 lbs. We never took them out of their boxes and just bought the recorders with our own money. From what I've seen the corporate world takes the same approach to savings-profits.